Friday, May 8, 2009

Knapp Lashes Himself To His Sinking Ship

Yes, Tom Knapp, I agree that your reading of 8.4 “is absurd with respect to regional reps”. What I don’t hear you claiming is “8.4 is absurd if we read it as being automatic in the way that the Judicial Committee unanimously reads 8.5.3 as being automatic”. Do you dare say that? Of course not, because that would be actually disagreeing with my argument, and you don’t want to touch my actual argument with a ten-foot pole.

I’m sorry, but there is just nothing “clear” in 8.4 about the process for enforcing the rule it sets forth. 8.4 no more describes the process for its enforcement than 8.5.3 does, and yet the Judicial Committee unanimously says that 8.5.3 is “automatic” — even though it is in the same 8.5 subsection as the for-cause removal power defined in 8.5.1. If 8.5.3 can be “automatic”, so can 8.4.

There is nothing “tangential” about the absurdity you admit that you read in 8.4. Fully eight of our thirteen LNC reps are regional reps, and you don’t dare deny that 8.4 applies to all thirteen. Instead, you claim it’s “tangential” that you read 8.4 as effectively just a polite suggestion for 62% of the LNC reps it purports to be a rule about.

“Imputing an implicit plenary power of removal to the Secretary” is just a recycling of Seebeck’s straw man, changing the word “arbitrary” to “plenary”. I already dismantled that straw man, thus:

The Secretary did not claim the power to remove somebody because of a bad hairstyle, for example. You’re confusing an “arbitrary” power of removal with the power of the recording officer to record that a very specific kind of disqualification has taken place.

I don’t impute, I quote. Again: the Bylaws say that “a National Committee member shall be a sustaining member of the Party”, and that “the Secretary shall be the recording officer of the Party” and shall “keep such minutes and records as necessary”. Necessary for what? Well, necessary for him to report who is a sustaining member, for example.

It remains hilarious for you to talk about the Secretary’s records as “allegations” when Wrights himself admitted that his sustaining membership had lapsed. I recall that there is a long-standing personal beef between you and our current Secretary, and I guess you would dearly love to create the urban legend that he has claimed “plenary power” to remove any LNC rep who looks at him wrong. I suspect that’s why you’re lashing yourself to the mainmast of your sinking argument, and riding it down to the depths of absurdity.